M50 Crash Frequency

Colonel Sanders

Thought I'd ask this question as I've only started commuting via the M50 a few months ago. As a result I'm not sure if it's "normal".

I join the M50 at Finglas every weekday morning & exit at Dundrum. Since the schools & colleges went back there has been a huge increase in serious accidents causing huge delays. Since last Monday (9 days) traffic has been at a stand still 6 of those days as the result of an accident. Seems to usually be between Blanchardstown & The Red Cow.

Question is what is this due to? Is it a case that the increases in volumes after the summer lull always leads to more accidents? Is it merely a statistical blip? Or is it simply a case of "chickens coming home to roost" as a result of the appalling driver behaviour discussed here almost daily?

If its idiotic driver behaviour could it be the catalyst for actual Garda enforcement of the basic rules of the road on the M50?

FWIW if anyone travels the Naas dual carriageway is this also the case?

spank_inferno

I notice that too.

I do wonder how the north-siders do it, almost every morning there is a "delays on the M50 southbound at junction...."

Atomic Pineapple

Was about to post a similar topic to this myself, I started commuting on the M50 myself only 8 weeks ago and the same thinking has been lingering in my head. I was on the M50 for over an hour this morning.

In those 8 weeks of commuting I have seen more accidents than in my previous 12 years of driving which included 5 years of driving the entire country in a van for a building company.

Every accident is almost identical, a pile up of 2/3 - 4 cars stuck into the back of each other, simple basic driving on a motorway would avoid this, it's clear people are not keeping their distance, observing the traffic around them and adjusting their speed correctly.

I can't understand how in 2012 we still don't educate or test people on their ability to drive on a motorway.

blastman

I was just thinking this myself this morning as I queued on the flyover from the M1 on to the M50, wondering what the hell was going on this week as there was delays due to a crash or "incident" every morning....

ION08

I started an identical thread a few months ago.

Thank God I don't commute on the M50 anymore, its so Full of idiots it actually gets infuriating.

Have a look

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=75753744

Ian1986

Your right it is down to basic bad driving, mainly tailgating and people driving in the wrong lane. I get on at ballymount heading north bound and it can nearly be impossible to merge into lane 1 sometimes. The next exit is red cow and because the queue can be long everyone getting off there is in lane one on top of one another as i'm trying to get out. The two exits are just to close together but if people just kept their distance you could still get out, but they don't!

Tallon

It's simple, Irish people cannot drive!

I see a crash every single morning, and it's ALWAYS at the same locations

mcbert

Up until recently, I was driving M50 northside, northbound every morning. Traffic usually moved well, but looking across to the other side of the road - northsiders driving southbound - it was backed up very regularly! Tailbacks through an exit junction or two, at a standstill, maybe every week, maybe more than once a week. Glad I wasn't stuck in it!

beerbaron

Tallon wrote: »

It's simple, Irish people cannot drive!

I see a crash every single morning, and it's ALWAYS at the same locations

Where every morning ? What time every morning ? This could be life saving information, don't keep it to yourself ?

Tallon

beerbaron wrote: »

Where every morning ? What time every morning ? This could be life saving information, don't keep it to yourself ?

The M50, The same 4-5 Junctions, every morning

Lucan-Blanch
Lucan Road at Woodies
Finglas-Ballymun
M1 at Swords

Not to mention the breakdowns...

Follow @M50Dublin, @LiveDrive , @AARoadWatch and look at their tweet history, clear pattern of crashes at the same junction every morning

Not to mention me being stuck in most of them

cjt156

Tallon wrote: »

It's simple, Irish people cannot drive!

Seeing as it seems to be M50 southbound traffic that crashes, like this morning, and a couple of times last week, I think the evidence is clear - Northsiders can't drive:P

R.O.R

Leave earlier. Get on the M50 earlier and get to work earlier.

I'm Southbound from the M1 to the Red Cow every morning from around 07.15 and you'll slow at the Lucan on ramp, but that's about all at that time of the morning.

Do end up doing an hours OT for free, but it's much better to sit in the office and do something than inch along the M50.

Tallon

cjt156 wrote: »

Seeing as it seems to be M50 southbound traffic that crashes, like this morning, and a couple of times last week, I think the evidence is clear - Northsiders can't drive:P

It's in both directions...

There is more crashes Southbound that Northbound, statistically, due to the fact that there's more Southbound than Northbound traffic in the morning!

Same way it reverses in the evening

spank_inferno

Tallon wrote: »

It's simple, Irish people cannot drive!

Correction Tallon.... over on the south side of the M50 we seem to get by fine without (for the most part!) crashing into each other every day.

spank_inferno

Tallon wrote: »

Follow @M50Dublin,

I had a look at that feed.... its freaky the amount of incidents there!

Tallon

spank_inferno wrote: »

Correction Tallon.... over on the south side of the M50 we seem to get by fine without (for the most part!) crashing into each other every day.

No you don't!

Tallon

It's also worth checking this bad boy out in the mornings

http://www.nratraffic.ie/traveltimes/default.asp?RegionId=0

Watch for (H Heavy) in the mornings

Tropheus

There has been a high number of minor accidents recently that cause havoc at peak times. I would agree that it's bad driving and mainly tailgating. The amount of tailgating on Irish motorways is frightening.

I drive from Raheny to Sandyford Mon - Fri. I have given up on the M50 in the mornings. I now go over the east link bridge and around the bay.

Its just too unreliable now, constant crashes leading to tailbacks. Hell even if there is a crash on the other side both sides will slowdown due to rubber neckers.

On the way home i mostly head the M50, unless i see a tweet from AAroadwatch that there's been a knock.

Its just poor driving standards mixed with high volumes in a rush to work.

johnson1

I started using the m50 in febuary and got the eflow tag, thinking as I go from blanch to tallaght it would be much quicker.

I stopped using it last month as I was more often than not stuck behind an accident.
Now I go through town and it's actually quicker on average as I have yet to come across an accident in town. M50 is shocking, and I would agree that it certainly seems to be the north to south route that's the problem.

uck51js9zml2yt

Tallon wrote: »

It's simple, Irish people cannot drive!

I see a crash every single morning, and it's ALWAYS at the same locations

Please let us know so we can avoid the area.

650Ginge

There should be a massive penalty for anyone causing an crash on the m50. 10's of thousands of people are inconvenienced and very little punishment for it if any.

Yakuza

spank_inferno wrote: »

I notice that too.

I do wonder how the north-siders do it, almost every morning there is a "delays on the M50 southbound at junction...."

spank_inferno wrote: »

Correction Tallon.... over on the south side of the M50 we seem to get by fine without (for the most part!) crashing into each other every day.

That's a fine chip you have on your shoulder there.

Most of the major junctions (N4 / N7 (to city West) / Dundrum / Leopardstown (Sandyford industrial estate etc) and M/N11) are south of the Liffey so the morning time would see a higher volume of traffic southbound. And I'm sure there are plenty of your beloved southsiders heading southbound (people living in Lucan / Palmerstown / Tallaght/ Firhouse and working in Sandyford / Dundrum etc). Add in to that people commuting in from Meath / Louth / NI etc opting to go around the city rather than through it, or are these all "north-siders" (sic) too?

More traffic = higher likelihood of incidents.

Tallon

Emma Silly Raffle wrote: »

Please let us know so we can avoid the area.

Read the thread!

Beano

cisk wrote: »

I drive from Raheny to Sandyford Mon - Fri. I have given up on the M50 in the mornings. I now go over the east link bridge and around the bay.

Its just too unreliable now, constant crashes leading to tailbacks. Hell even if there is a crash on the other side both sides will slowdown due to rubber neckers.

On the way home i mostly head the M50, unless i see a tweet from AAroadwatch that there's been a knock.

Its just poor driving standards mixed with high volumes in a rush to work.

I do a very similar journey myself but i go on the m50 in the morning. What is the east link like these days? I used to do it before but the crawl along the coast road to clontarf killed me. What time do you leave at and how long does it take you if you dont mind me asking?

Sleepy

Been noticing an increase of incidents since the schools got back myself... I do Santry to Blanchardstown every morning.

The thing that irritates me is that most of these incidents are utterly trivial fender benders. Reducing a 3 lane motorway to 2 lanes should not cause such havoc. If the rubber-neckers would just get on with things we'd see far less problems.

bladespin

Definately seems a lot worse than normal over the past couple of weeks, no idea why but the M50 southbound at Blanch and Red cow are blackspots at the moment.

antodeco

Im going to bullet point my thinking!

• Its because of morons who sit in the far right overtaking lane, until the very last minute, so they need to brake to get across three lanes.
• At the same time, you have people coming off the off ramp, and trying to navigate to the middle lane, so they can go around the queue of backed up cars getting onto the next on ramp.
• You then have the other people who crawl along the middle lane causing carnage either side of them.
• Couple this with the fact that there are alot of drivers who cannot drive correctly when its dark or anyway rainy, and its a recipe for disaster.

Beano

Beano wrote: »

I do a very similar journey myself but i go on the m50 in the morning. What is the east link like these days? I used to do it before but the crawl along the coast road to clontarf killed me. What time do you leave at and how long does it take you if you dont mind me asking?

It can be a bit ropey from castle avenue until you get onto Alfie byrne road. I do go a bit later than most tho, i would get to that point at about 9-9:10. Light traffic at that time. Takes me approx 40 mins nowadays.

From 8-8:45 it can be busy alright along the coast, small stretch tho once you clear it your flying.

Floggers

cjt156 wrote: »

Seeing as it seems to be M50 southbound traffic that crashes, like this morning, and a couple of times last week, I think the evidence is clear - Northsiders can't drive:P

And you'd think with their history of robbing cars etc etc.......:eek:

Big Nasty

Essential Listening

Apparently Dublin has the safest roads in Europe!

Beano

cisk wrote: »

It can be a bit ropey from castle avenue until you get onto Alfie byrne road. I do go a bit later than most tho, i would get to that point at about 9-9:10. Light traffic at that time. Takes me approx 40 mins nowadays.

From 8-8:45 it can be busy alright along the coast, small stretch tho once you clear it your flying.

thanks for the info. I might give it a go tomorrow. I normally leave about 8.05 so 40 minutes would be perfect. Even on a good day the M50 takes nearly an hour in the morning.

Hope fully it will ok at that time, at least its the same day in day out. The M50 is so unpredictable.

shar01

Love John Neary on Dublin City FM in the evenings!

Apart from bad driving, there's also poorly designed roads. The N/M11 merge going south at Loughlinstown should never have been built.

You have cars wanting to go off at the Wilford roundabout getting into the "on-ramp" as soon as the M11 merges with the M50 while cars are accelerating to come onto the M50.

Instead the Cherrywood junction should be the way to get onto the M50 south.

And as for this business of not having any breaks in the median strip. I know it makes things safer when it comes to cars crossing over into oncoming traffic in an accident but it also means contra-flows can't be set up.

larchill

Thank goodness I only get on @ the N2 & exit @ the N3 junctions. Most of the problems seem to be on the southern part south of the Westlink bridge. Clowns hogging the fast lanes probably!

Atomic Pineapple

larchill wrote: »

Thank goodness I only get on @ the N2 & exit @ the N3 junctions. Most of the problems seem to be on the southern part south of the Westlink bridge. Clowns hogging the fast lanes probably!

What lanes!? :eek:

Yakuza

shar01 wrote: »

And as for this business of not having any breaks in the median strip. I know it makes things safer when it comes to cars crossing over into oncoming traffic in an accident but it also means contra-flows can't be set up.

That would be too logical for here!
I used to live in Spain and work in Madrid. Coming back from visiting the in-laws of a weekend, from about 50km outside of Madrid, the 6-lane motorway was changed into 4 lanes Madrid-bound and 2 outbound. Traffic was still woejus, but it would be far worse without a contra-flow. Also, in Madrid itself, they have some relief lanes that are one direction in the morning and the opposite in the evening - pure logic that we are sorely bereft of here.

sin0city

I drive it every day and to me it seems tailgating is a big problem.
Doing one hundred k + with less than a car length between you and the person in front? You pull over to let them past but no, that's not what they wanted. They just wanted to draft you or look in your back seat, I don't know. WTF?

Then there's the people in the fast lane who decide that because they're doing the speed limit they shouldn't pull over if someone wants to get past them. How they think it's their business if someone else wants to break the speed limit is beyond me. You then have people undertaking them, sometimes in the left most lane of 3. Pull over! (Reminded myself of Eddy Murphy in Raw there :-))

Then there's this obsession with the overtaking lane. You could have a row of cars in it with the other 2 lanes empty. You're supposed to overtake and then get the **** out.

As has been mentioned, probably largely down to the fact there's no testing done on the motorways. Sure why would you test people on the roads that we drive fastest on that have the potential for the most serious crashes and require more observation and attention than our other roads?

Sorry, rant over.

dudara

Colonel Sanders wrote: »

FWIW if anyone travels the Naas dual carriageway is this also the case?

I used to regularly drive both the M50 & N7 and I have also seen large amounts of rear-enders on the N7. It's basically the same root causes as mentioned by another posters

* Poor lane use
* Downright dangerous distance maintenance
* Inability to adjust for bad weather conditions

dar83

Yep, greeted by this today...



And that's at the very start of the M50 at the M1/M50 junction.... 12km tailback cause by an accident at J7 (which is Southside for you guys that it matters to... ).

spank_inferno

dar83 wrote: »

12km tailback cause by an accident at J7 (which is Southside for you guys that it matters to... ).

Nah..... the Southside stops at Dundrum / Sandyford.

Further north its the wilds of West / North Dublin.... its chaos up there!

tin79

spank_inferno wrote: »

Nah..... the Southside stops at Dundrum / Sandyford.

Further north its the wilds of West / North Dublin.... its chaos up there!

The southside/northside thing has been done to death on this thread. Its more suited to AH TBH.

tin79

I agree there seems to be a huge increase in it lately. On the N3 going onto both M50 south and north there has been several incidents in the last two weeks. Mostly rear enders. There have been a few of the same in the evenings too.

Poor distance management and random lane swapping seems to be the issue really in a lot of cases along with lack on indicating and the usual general idiocy.

Having said that the whole M50 seems to have been more or less abandoned by the traffic corps. I have been 6 years on it almost every day now and I cannot over recall seeing anyone pulled over for undertaking, tailgaiting, not-indicating, driving in the wrong lane, swerving over hatchings etc.

Its more or less lawless.

Floggers

Dar83....is that you on the road/M50 now or this morning??

antodeco

tin79 wrote: »

I agree there seems to be a huge increase in it lately. On the N3 going onto both M50 south and north there has been several incidents in the last two weeks. Mostly rear enders. There have been a few of the same in the evenings too.

Poor distance management and random lane swapping seems to be the issue really in a lot of cases along with lack on indicating and the usual general idiocy.

Having said that the whole M50 seems to have been more or less abandoned by the traffic corps. I have been 6 years on it almost every day now and I cannot over recall seeing anyone pulled over for undertaking, tailgaiting, not-indicating, driving in the wrong lane, swerving over hatchings etc.

Its more or less lawless.

I was pulled over by the Gardai a few months ago. They stopped me because I would move into the right lane whenever I came behind a car, and then moved back left when I had passed them. I would then move left again into the very left lane. Move right knowing there was a car up ahead in the middle lane, pass on the right hand side and move back left. Then wait, and move left again. If that to them is wrong, than we have no hope for everyone else!

tin79

antodeco wrote: »

I was pulled over by the Gardai a few months ago. They stopped me because I would move into the right lane whenever I came behind a car, and then moved back left when I had passed them. I would then move left again into the very left lane. Move right knowing there was a car up ahead in the middle lane, pass on the right hand side and move back left. Then wait, and move left again. If that to them is wrong, than we have no hope for everyone else!

That is actually depressing reading.

Atomic Pineapple

antodeco wrote: »

I was pulled over by the Gardai a few months ago. They stopped me because I would move into the right lane whenever I came behind a car, and then moved back left when I had passed them. I would then move left again into the very left lane. Move right knowing there was a car up ahead in the middle lane, pass on the right hand side and move back left. Then wait, and move left again. If that to them is wrong, than we have no hope for everyone else!

Unreal.

Colonel Sanders

antodeco wrote: »

I was pulled over by the Gardai a few months ago. They stopped me because I would move into the right lane whenever I came behind a car, and then moved back left when I had passed them. I would then move left again into the very left lane. Move right knowing there was a car up ahead in the middle lane, pass on the right hand side and move back left. Then wait, and move left again. If that to them is wrong, than we have no hope for everyone else!

My wife gives out to me for "swerving" when I cross 2 lanes to over take a middle lane moron

Irony is I'm one of the very few people on the M50 actually trying to drive correctly.

PS she gives out if I under take too so I can't win!!!

Floggers

antodeco wrote: »

I was pulled over by the Gardai a few months ago. They stopped me because I would move into the right lane whenever I came behind a car, and then moved back left when I had passed them. I would then move left again into the very left lane. Move right knowing there was a car up ahead in the middle lane, pass on the right hand side and move back left. Then wait, and move left again. If that to them is wrong, than we have no hope for everyone else!

That is madnes, what did you say to the Garda?

dar83

Floggers wrote: »

Dar83....is that you on the road/M50 now or this morning??

This morning, at about 8:50am...

antodeco

Floggers wrote: »

That is madnes, what did you say to the Garda?

I said something along the lines of "I was overtaking and moving back into the driving lane" and they replied back "You shouldnt be moving back in and out of lanes. If you are driving quicker, you should stay in the one lane" basically. They asked where was I coming from, told them from a job interview, so they said "ah we will let you away with it. Just make sure you drive properly next time".

EDIT: I remember her actually saying that she nearly crashed into the back of me because she moved in behind me when there wasnt enough room for her car to fit. I found that rather bizarre that she admitted to trying to move in behind me when there wasnt enough room.